The present invention pertains to automatically selecting and linking information of different types, such as selecting and linking electronic advertisements to Web pages.
Information from different sources is frequently linked, through physical means (e.g. cut-and-paste) or using computers or similar means. Through this linking, two formerly unassociated units of information become associated, so that a user accessing one unit of information will be presented with both. For example, a user accessing a Web page will also access any electronic advertisements displayed on that page.
Often, one of these units of information will be predetermined (or “given”). Another unit of information will then be selected (or “chosen”) to be linked to the given unit of information. The chosen information unit will often be selected from among a group of information units eligible for linking to the given information unit. This group of information units is referred to as “candidate information” because it includes units of information which are candidates to be selected for linking to the given piece of information. For example, a group of electronic advertisements would constitute candidate information if it was available for linking to a Web site (given information). The candidate information group may contain many units of candidate information, and there may be continual adding and deleting of units from the group.
The content (including characteristics) of the given information unit usually will determine which candidate information unit will be linked to the given information unit. The content of the given information is compared with the content (including characteristics) of the candidate information, and the best match is selected.
The field of advertising commonly presents occasions for linking of information. Advertisers seek to target their ads to consumers likely to consume their products. Linking the ads to information that these consumers desire enables the advertisers to target these consumers. For example, magazine publishers producing an issue focusing on a particular topic may attempt to attract advertisements from advertisers related to that topic, and may place the ads in the magazine near the relevant stories.
Publication of information on the World Wide Web is largely advertiser-funded. Operators of Web sites provide information on various pages of those sites which users access over the Internet. Web site operators place advertisements on their sites in exchange for payments from advertisers. These advertisements may include electronic displays of text and/or pictures, and may include links to Web sites operated by the advertiser.
Placing an advertisement on a Web page is an example of selecting a candidate information unit (advertisement) for a given information unit (Web page), and linking the two together. By matching the content of the given information unit to the candidate information units, the advertiser is able to target the users accessing the given information.
In the above-mentioned example, the given information is manually examined and compared to the candidate information in order to select one of the candidates to link to the given information. This laborious and time-intensive process is a limit on the linking of information. Furthermore, the candidate information group is usually not organized specifically for the purpose of selecting and linking the candidate information. Only the most general linkings are practical, such as, for example, linking ads to magazines with a focused audience, or a special issue devoted to a certain topic.
Web sites generally contain advertisements related to their general, but not specific content. Web sites including multiple Web pages may be divided into sections for certain topics. Advertisements related to those topics are allocated to the related sections, but it is not presently practical to allocate ads based on page-by-page content.
In addition to manual examination of given information, manual processing of the information, and linking to selected candidate information, as described above, other techniques have been used by Web advertisers to target their advertisements to certain users. Web search engine operators employ user-input data to present certain ads to users. When a user inputs search terms to retrieve links to Internet sites, the search engine compares the user-input information to Web site descriptors contained on the site (meta-text) to retrieve addresses of sites containing matches to the search terms. The search engine substantially simultaneously searches a database of advertisements for matches to the input search terms. The search engine then displays links to the retrieved Web sites along with selected advertisements.
Another method by which computer software can provide information to a user, based on user inputs, is a feature of some user-oriented software programs (e.g. word-processing programs). This feature continually compares user keystrokes and command selections to a database containing lists of inefficient keystrokes and command selections and corresponding user messages. When a match is found, the software will display a message to the user suggesting a more efficient way to perform the user's desired task. In this way, even though the user is not aware of which of the user inputs will trigger a message, valuable information will be sent to the user automatically.